The Owl (album)


The Owl is the sixth studio album by American country music band Zac Brown Band. It was released on September 20, 2019, through Wheelhouse Records.

Content

It is described as the band's "most personal album to date". For this album the band worked with pop and EDM writer and producers such as Poo Bear, Shawn Mendes, Max Martin, Benny Blanco, Ryan Tedder, and Skrillex. One of the tracks features a collaboration with Brandi Carlile.

Critical reception

Kelly Dearmore of the blog Sounds Like Nashville gave a largely negative review, criticizing the lack of country sound relative to the band's preceding albums and comparing many songs negatively to Brown's electronica side project Sir Rosevelt. Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic rated the album 2.5 out of 5 stars, also noting parallels to the Sir Rosevelt album. He concluded his review with "The fact that a good chunk of the numbers work does not erase how deeply strange this album is." It also got a negative review from Pip Ellwood-Hughes of Entertainment Focus, who stated that "Zac Brown Band have shown what they can do in the past and this set of songs doesn't come close. If this were the debut album of a new pop band, it may be received kindlier but this is a misjudged project from a beloved Country band that attempts to push boundaries but will likely just turn their fans off."

Commercial performance

The Owl debuted at number two on the US Billboard 200 with 106,000 album-equivalent units, including 99,000 pure album sales. It is Zac Brown Band's sixth US top 10 album. The album has sold 137,100 copies in the United States as of March 2020.

Track listing

Personnel

Zac Brown Band
Additional musicians
Production

Weekly charts

Year-end charts